So for this final playlist I am not going to comment on the videos in this week's list. Instead I shall just cite the lyrics of my final song to close Covid Island Discs Given the mess we're are in with the Covid-19 delta variant and runaway global heating, I think many reading these lyrics will feel a sense of "Amen" to that.

I've been living to see you Dying to see you, but it shouldn't be like this This was unexpected, what do I do now Could we start again, please? I've been very hopeful so far Now for the first time I think we're going wrong Hurry up and tell me this is just a dream Or could we start again, please? I think you've made your point now You've even gone a bit too far to get the message home Before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt So could we start again, please? I've been living to see you Dying to see you, but it shouldn't be like this This was unexpected, what do I do now Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? I think you've made you point now You've even gone a bit too far to get the message home Before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt So could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again? Could we start again?

So today I watched a very interesting video analysis of a song by the Beatles called A Northern Song. Post Covid Island Discs now usually records the death of famous musicians and of course poor old George Harrison passed away many years before the Covid-19 pandemic. So I guess this post is in memorandum to George Harrison even if he did pass away so many years before this website was even born. Yet there appears to be so much more to this song of Harrison's than meets the eye as explained by James Hargreaves in his video which is also included under the Beatles Anthrology recording of Harrison's clever song which I think, as Hargreaves argues, is a passive-aggressive dig at the way McCartney and Lennon treated him as an inferior member of the Beatles.

After watching Hargreaves excellent analysis of the Harrison's song, along with his detailing of the complicated tensions that existed between the Beatles in the late 60s, it became obvious that the band was always in trouble and it was only a matter of time before the fab four would go their separate ways. Hargreaves analysis challenges the commonly held idea that the breakup of the band was solely down to Yoko entering the scene as clearly relational tensions in the Beatles were not just confined to John and Paul.

A less known version but better version (in my opinion) of the song before Lennon and McCartney fell into a possible trap set by Harrison (see Hargreaves analysis below).

Analysis of the song and its meaning by James Hargreaves

The mainstream version of the song as first published on the Yellow Submarine Album

As I watched the video to this tune it made me feel really sad. Lennon, like McCartney, was an amazing talent and this song appeared on the album Double Fantasy which was release after his assassination in 1980. The album is only half decent in that all the songs he did were great while all Yoko's contributions were ?? (well perhaps it is an acquired taste).

I also relate to this tune because in 2017, after leaving Imagen, I also spent a long time watching the wheels go round and round while writing my book. My conclusion: we live in mad world that's for sure.

I really love this song, the lyrics are so beautiful. The last verse is especially poignant:

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say, "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way
Oh, but now old friends they're acting strange
And they shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day
I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all.

This little number appeared on Queen's "Night at the Opera" album which in my view was by far their best album. I really like this little ditty as it captures the wise truth that it is very easy to lose friendships with the progression of the years. In my own life I can think of many who have travelled some of that strange road we call our life and yet are no longer walking with me. My favourite lines in this song are:

Now I'm old and puff my pipe but no one's there to see
Ponder on my the lesson of my life's insanity
Take care of those you call your own and keep good company.

The banjo in this song is also very good!

OK this video clip is a bit of unusual find where Paul Simon and Willie Nelson duet on the Simon and Garfunkel classic Homeward Bound. Willie Nelson certainly brings a unique sound to this classic song as no-one has the vocal tonality of Willie's unique signature voice.

I think this is probably Alanis' best song of all. I really love the musical progression and the intensity of the chorus especially where she jumps notes at the point "thank you 🎵 disillusionment"

So during the long journey that was Covid Island Discs I explored different musical themes. One of these themes were strange songs of the 1980s. This song, which was released in 1982, certainly should have made my list as its lyrics are pretty bizarre. The song was inspired by an 80s dance movement which some coined crash dancing which, if you follow the link in this post, evolved from a video game called Crash Bandicoot that was a video game created for Sony to compete against Nintendo's Mario and Sega's Sonic hedgehog.

Yet the creators of Crash Bandicoot inadvertently spawned a type of dance move which mimicked the Bandicoot's move of pelvic thrusts and spinning rapidly with arms outstretched to hit those who were in your reach. Now until I did some reading around the history of this song, I thought the song was a protest against this type of dancing (hence the title safety dance) but in fact I was wrong. The origin of the song is a protest against bouncers who threw out the lead singer Ivan Doroschuk because he was doing a form of crash dancing known as pogoing.

Anyway, my brother was always very bemused by this song and thought it was the epitome of pop music's collapse in the 1980s (if only he could see what was coming in the teens of the 21^st century). He particularly found the lyric: "you can dance, you can dance, everybody look at your hands" as highly amusing as in his mind it kind of captured the type of folk that would like this song: a little Neanderthal-like as they obediently look at their hands on the dance floor in amazement as a response to the song's command. Still it is a great one hit wonder in my view and well worth adding to my Covid Island Discs collection.